


the gravities of terrestrial life

by bbuckyy



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Gen, No Incest, Number Five | The Boy and Klaus Hargreeves are Twins, body image issues, just brotherly bonding, please let five talk about his feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbuckyy/pseuds/bbuckyy
Summary: Klaus comes to terms with being older and younger than his twin brother."Klaus got up slowly, and strolled over to sit beside Five on the sofa, now much taller than his twin. He took a moment to really study his face. It really was him, exactly the same as he was seventeen years ago. Klaus reached up and touched his own face absentmindedly, feeling the beard that Five should’ve been growing by now. Hell, he didn’t even have acne yet. He was thirteen again, scrawny and baby-faced and filled with hormones. Five looked straight ahead, avoiding Klaus’s gaze, and Klaus thought that he must be thinking about the same things."
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 4
Kudos: 155





	the gravities of terrestrial life

**Author's Note:**

> so this definitely ISN'T just me, a trans man, projecting my issues onto five. absolutely not. no sir. also don't talk about shipping them or any of the hargreeves together in the comments. i won't let this fic become a platform for incest shipping.

Whew. Crises averted. Two apocalypses stopped, two timelines saved, one cult left to figure itself out under Keechie’s leadership. It was all behind the Hargreeves now, and Klaus had to admit he felt pret-ty good. He was sober for longer than he had ever been. It took time for him to figure out how to blur out the gruesome faces and bodies that crowded every inch of his vision without the drugs, but Ben had helped him figure it out. 

That was the one thing that was missing: Ben. 

Klaus was expecting to feel devastated when the day finally came for Ben to move on. To feel a dark hole somewhere in his heart, like part of him was missing. And to an extent, he did feel that; Ben had been his constant guide for the last 16 years, seen him through addiction and recovery and relapse, but above all of that, Klaus felt relief. Ben had told him about the strange phantom pain that came with being stuck between two worlds. Klaus could finally relax knowing that Ben wasn’t in that pain anymore, that he could finally move on to whatever the next stage was.

Besides, in losing one brother, Klaus had regained another. Before Five had disappeared, he and Klaus had been inseparable. They were the twins, Four and Five, joined at the hip. When Five went missing, Klaus truly felt like he lost half of himself. They were fraternal, so it wasn’t any of that cheesy “not seeing yourself in your twin” shit that Klaus saw on soap operas, but Five was the only person who’d been with him all his life. They never knew their mother, and God knows that Reginald was no father, so they were all each other had. Klaus no longer had someone to zap him away from an unfriendly spirit, or to reassure him when everyone else shuddered at the chill that followed him into every room. 

When Five went missing was when Klaus really started doing the hard shit. Sure, he smoked and got stoned every now and then when Five was still around (Five normally acted as his lookout, but never joined in), but after his disappearance, Klaus found someone to get him coke, LSD, PCP, you name it. Ben was the one who stepped in first, originally in the flesh, then as a specter. Klaus loved Ben, he really did (though he’d never admit it to his face), but something in him left with Five. 

Then that one fateful day in March, 2019, that piece came back. Klaus threw the fire extinguisher before he fully registered what he saw rippling through that portal. That old face looked familiar somehow, almost as if he’d seen it in a dream a long time ago. Something about the cheekbones. Then he noticed those two moles on the man’s left cheek, and the image began to transform. In the blink of an eye, there was Five, laying before him on the concrete. 

Klaus was, to say the least, shocked. He wasn’t that old man, he wasn’t what Klaus had imagined Five would look like at the ripe old age of 29, no, he was… _Five_ , exactly as he had looked the last time he was seen, almost seventeen years ago. The rest of their siblings rushed to help him up, but Klaus stood frozen, staring at the twin he had been missing for more than a decade, now almost half his age. As Luther carried him inside the Academy, Klaus stood in the courtyard, staring at the spot where Five had fallen. 

The next three years were a drag and a blur. Just when Klaus had gotten that piece of himself back, he disappeared again. Or rather, _Klaus_ disappeared. He started an _independent spiritual community_ , tried to stop the love of his life from joining the army, saved the world (twice), and he did it without Five. 

But all of that was in the past, now. _Now_ , Klaus sat in an armchair in an un-destroyed Academy, drinking some shitty Earl Grey tea, listening to a jazz record, and reading an X-Men comic, chuckling at all the ways they got superpowers wrong. He and Five were yet to confront the time they had missed together, and both of them were painfully aware of it. The closest they got was Five cooking eggs the way he knew Klaus liked them, and Klaus picking up Five’s favorite brand of whiskey because he wasn’t old enough to buy it. Every now and then they’d exchange a curt nod and a slap on a shoulder, but that was as far as they got. Klaus sipped his tea and grimaced, turning the page of his comic, when Five strolled into the living room with a steaming mug of coffee and the thickest book Klaus had ever seen in his life. He plopped down onto the sofa the same way he did all those years ago, and opened his colossal book with a sigh. 

Klaus grunted at one of Mystique’s witty comments and Five looked up at him. “That’s a good issue,” he said nonchalantly. 

Klaus looked up at his brother. “Yeah, it is.” He paused for a moment, “Did you read it? When you were-”

“In the apocalypse? Yeah.” Five clicked his tongue as punctuation and stared blankly at his book, not even pretending to move his eyes across the page. He just breathed, letting the silence between him and Klaus grow even thicker.

“Do you wanna… talk about it?”

“Not really, no.”

“Got it, yeah…” Klaus trailed off, sighing dramatically. “Was it really just you?”

Klaus never was one to follow instructions.

“And Delores.” Five didn’t even look up from his book.

“And Delores.” God, Klaus hated awkward conversations like these. He felt like he was back in rehab, trying to cobble together some sort of summary of his life without revealing too much. “Y’know, I still have that, uh, book you bought me. _The Time Machine_?” _How ironic_ , Klaus thought.

“I didn’t buy that for you.”

“What? Yes you did.”

“No, I didn’t. Shoplifted it.”

Klaus’s jaw practically fell off his face. “ _You_? You _shoplifted_? _For me_?” 

“It’s not like we got an allowance, Klaus.” Five finally cracked a smile and closed his book.

“Perfect little Five, dear old Dad’s favorite son, broke the law for _me_?” Klaus leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees. 

Five grinned a little and gestured to Klaus, “Well, it’s not everyday your twin brother turns thirteen.”

Klaus laughed a little before realizing that, yes, that was their thirteenth birthday. The last birthday they had together before Five went missing. “I used to read that, like, every night after you disappeared. For, like, a year.”

Five’s smug grin relaxed and his eyes grew solemn. They both breathed, not knowing where to take the conversation from here. “Seems kind of poetic, huh? I’m stuck in the future after the world ends while you’re reading a book about a guy in the same situation.”

“It’s not lost on me. I used to avoid this room like the plague ‘cause I didn’t want to see that thing.” Klaus pointed at the portrait of Five hanging above them, expressionless. The real Five stared right back at it, not quite mirroring its face. 

“There weren’t many calendars where I was, but I always kept track of the date. Every October first I’d light a match and blow it out- not many candles either.” 

Klaus got up slowly, and strolled over to sit beside Five on the sofa, now much taller than his twin. He took a moment to really study his face. It really was him, exactly the same as he was seventeen years ago. Klaus reached up and touched his own face absentmindedly, feeling the beard that Five should’ve been growing by now. Hell, he didn’t even have acne yet. He was thirteen again, scrawny and baby-faced and filled with hormones. Five looked straight ahead, avoiding Klaus’s gaze, and Klaus thought that he must be thinking about the same things. 

“So I guess this is round two for you, huh? On the whole puberty thing?”

“Don’t remind me.” Oh boy, Klaus recognized that voice. That was the voice that Five used when he _really_ wanted to look cool and nonchalant. Five should have known by now that that disguise was useless on Klaus, his own twin brother. 

“I’m sorry.” Five leaned forward, elbows on his knobby knees, staring down at the floor. Klaus brought a hand up to rest tentatively on his shoulder.

“Yeah, me too.” Five swallowed something thick and exhaled loudly. “Me too.”

“Guess you’re my big brother now, huh?”

“ _Shit_ ,” Five’s voice broke, and he brought a hand up to cover his eyes as he turned away from Klaus, shoulders trembling.

“Fuck, no, I’m sorry.” Klaus brought his arms up around Five’s shoulders, leaning his head on his back. “Shit, that sounded awful.”

“God, would you fucking listen to yourself?” Five shoved Klaus off of his back and stood up. “You, with your beard and your voice and your fucking chest hair, and here I am, fucking prepubscent! You think I don’t know how fucked up this all is? That I’m twenty years older than my _twin_ brother and I still sound like my balls haven’t dropped yet? I know, Klaus. I know that you missed me, I know that it sucked, I know that you’re sorry, but I’m still trying to get used to losing forty goddamn years of my life! I don’t have the luxury of being sorry because I’m the one who’s living all this shit!” 

Klaus blinked up at Five as he panted and wiped at his eyes after his outburst. God, what could he even say to that? Five was right, Klaus was in no position to joke about Five’s whole… deal. Klaus looked down at his hands, studying the tattoos he got so long ago. _HELLO_. _GOODBYE_. He took in a deep breath. “ _Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life_.”

Five stopped his heaving and stared at Klaus. “What?”

“It’s from _The Time Machine_. From after the time traveller helps defeat the Morlocks. I told you, I read the _shit_ out of that book.” Five huffed and ran a hand through his hair, dropping himself back onto the sofa beside Klaus. “I’m sorry, man, I- I was out of line.”

Five sighed, “it’s fine.” 

Klaus looked back at Five. He remembered back to when they were eight. Back then, they were easily mistakable for identical twins- they were the same height, wore their hair the same way, and were both baby-faced enough that any distinguishing features were smoothed out. Klaus hadn’t quite yet learned to stop talking about the horrors he saw daily to anyone who would listen, so Five was his near constant outlet when a room got a little too crowded with people nobody else could see. Five would put an arm around him, make his hands do that glowy thing that made Klaus’s eyes hurt if he looked too hard, and the next thing he knew he was somewhere else, Five’s arm still around him, gasping for air. 

Klaus saw that same face sitting beside him, and it hurt to look at. To _see_ all those years that Five lost. To know that he was born on the exact same day as Klaus, his twin fucking brother, who looks like he’s thirteen, but was more than twenty years older than him. God, Klaus hurt for him. He clasped a hand on Five’s shoulder. He didn’t quite know what to say, if he should say anything, but Five was leaning into his hand, and soon his head came to rest on Klaus’s shoulder. 

“I’m fucking tired, Klaus.” Five drew in a shaky breath as Klaus looked over at the coffee table at Five’s book. _War and Peace_. Seemed apt enough. 

“I know,” Klaus sighed and wrapped his arm around Five, “tell you what, you can call me _your_ big brother if you want.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments make my day! :-D


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